


This endless life (of sorrow and joy)

by Waterfall



Category: Sagnet om Lysets rike | The Legend of the Realm of Light - Margit Sandemo
Genre: Family, Fish out of Temporal Water, Gen, Marco/Dolg if you squint, The pros and cons of 1995
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waterfall/pseuds/Waterfall
Summary: Móri falls asleep in 1746 and wakes up in 1995. Even with the help of good friends it's a lot to get used to, especially when all he wants to do is find his son and go home.





	1. Another day I never thought I'd see

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hildigunnur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hildigunnur/gifts).



> **Title:** This endless life (of sorrow and joy)  
>  **Fandom:** Sagnet om Lysets rike (The Legend of the Realm of Light)  
>  **Characters:** Móri, Dolg, Indra, mentions of Marco, Nathaniel and Ellen  
>  **Word count:** 1599 (AO3 is a lying liar who lies)  
>  **Disclaimer:** The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to Margit Sandemo. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not archive this story without my permission.  
>   
>  **Author’s Notes:** Here you go, my dear Hildigunnur, I hope you enjoy your fic! I certainly had a lot of fun writing it, even though it was not what I had planned to write at all! I was going to go with your first prompt, but then I started looking at the books to refresh my memory and inspiration struck. So this is Móri-centric, with a bit of Indra thrown in for good measure.

Móri has not lived what can be called a normal life, not by any description. He has seen and experienced things that would drive most people mad, and never truly expected to find anyone who would understand it – or him. And now he has an entire family, and friends as well, and it is a blessing beyond his wildest dreams. 

That is why the pain of losing them all is almost unbearable.

He holds on to the hope that they are safe beyond the gates as he makes his way to find his son. He holds on to the knowledge that Dolg is immortal and cannot be killed as he casts the spell that keeps him safe and alive as he is impaled and buried. He holds on to his love and his hope for the next two hundred and fifty years as he drifts in and out of consciousness.  
_Tiril. Dolg. Taran. Wilding. Theresa. Erling…_

 _Who is that?_  
There is a presence nearby, a familiar feeling of magic and power, yet strange and unknown.  
_Who are you?_  
This is someone who can help him, he knows that much.  
_Hurry, please! I need to find my son… hurry!_

It seems only a short while later when he feels the power again, even stronger now. Close, so close, coming even closer as the burden on top of him is lessened stone by stone. The rush of blood and cold air as he is uncovered.  
_Hurry!_  
A voice, faint and strange to his ears. Asking him to move, something so easy once, done without thought. Now it takes long painful seconds, his limbs aching and on fire as he struggles to move a single finger. There is a tension in the air, a thrumming of power and life, a sense of compassion. Voices above him, a cessation of pain that he hadn’t even noticed as the stones pressed into his face. The cool air, and gentle warm hands.

Finally, he opens his eyes.  
“Hi,” someone says kindly. “Welcome back to the world!”  
But the world Móri returns to is far from the world he left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to refer to Villemann (Móri’s other son) but in the end I landed on Wilding, which apparently means (according to Merriam-Webster) “a plant growing uncultivated in the wild either as a native or an escape” or “a wild animal”. So it sort of works. :D


	2. The eye of a hurricane

Despite the desperate need to find his son Móri still cannot help but take an interest in the world outside the forest where he spent the last two and a half centuries. For all its grey, square ugliness, this world also has its wonders. Once he gets over the mind-numbing terror of speeding around in carriages without horses, he learns to appreciate how quickly it transports them from one place to the other.  
“It takes only a few hours to get to Austria from here,” Indra informs him in her habitual drawl. “That’s by plane though, it takes a few days to drive there I think.”  
As usual since he woke up, he doesn’t know which part of her statement to figure out first. The idea of a journey of several weeks being over in a day is difficult enough to wrap his head around, but…  
“‘Plane’?” he asks her, and she looks blankly at him for a moment before laughing – at herself, not at him, none of them have laughed at him no matter his questions.  
“Why isn’t there a manual for this kind of thing? A plane is a form of transportation that travels in the sky, like boats travel on the ocean. You can see their tracks in the sky sometimes, like white stripes.” She holds up her hand, palm down and fingers together, and moves it through the air. “In short – it flies.”  
“It flies,” he repeats deadpan.  
“Yup,” she answers, in the same tone of voice. For a moment they simply stare at each other, her eyes sparkling with understanding and more than a little amusement at his reaction. He feels his lips twitch in response, just as aware of the absurdity of his situation. She snickers, and that’s all it takes for him to burst into laughter tinged with more than a little hysteria. Indra’s laugh mixes with his own, and he feels his body relax as he lets go until tears trickle down his face.  
“I’m glad I got the chance to talk to you,” he comments after he’s recovered. She shrugs uncomfortably, pretending not to care.  
“Because I made you cry?”  
“No,” he corrects her. “Because you made me laugh.”  
His words bring a smile to her face, and she decides that the best way to repay his compliment is to teach him all he needs to know about chocolate.

She also teaches him about television, and for a while he’s not sure if he can forgive her. Móri spends the better part of a day absorbing as much as he can, ending up with extreme confusion and a strong headache. Nathaniel spends another hour untangling real life shows, news broadcasts and fiction for him, as they go through gameshows (mostly real), Rex the police dog (not real), atom bombs (unfortunately very real), and Walker, Texas Ranger (probably not real). After the experience he stays away from the television for the most part, sitting down to watch when he is invited but mostly trying to ignore both the depressing reality of the news and the confusing too-real telling of stories. Television is for those who belong in 1995, he reasons; he’s not going to need it where he is going.

To the surprise of his new friends it isn’t the obvious changes that affect him most but the food. Even the bread is different from what he’s used to, light and fluffy with almost no taste. The butter, too. (“Mixed with oil,” Indra explains over breakfast, and he shakes his head in confusion as she grins at him.) Nothing seems natural any more, and everything comes in packages, boxes or jars, made of paper, metal and something called ‘plastic’. At least the fruit stays mostly the same, or so he thinks until he is handed an opened metal box of something called pineapple which has apparently travelled half-way across the world so that he can eat it. It tastes absolutely divine, and he eats it every day until they leave for Iceland. He is less fond of the many sweets that appeal so strongly to everyone, especially something called licorice that Ellen loves. It doesn’t really taste _bad_ , he reassures her, just… wrong. Nathaniel laughs at her and offers him some chocolate instead, which he gladly accepts. When they leave to find Dolg he puts a bar of it in his bag, determined that his son shall have everything that is good from this time and nothing that is bad.


	3. A wake which knows no sleeping

As if suddenly being in the future wasn’t bad enough, Móri wakes to the world behind the Gates with a feeling of extreme disorientation. The light that greets his eyes is still electric, but it feels… different, somehow. Softer, less intrusive. And the background hum of electronics that he was just starting to get used to is also gone, leaving the room silent. Even the air smells cleaner, more like the 18th century he once knew. He feels his arms shake as he sits up on the bed, his stomach muscles clenching around a wound that is long gone. 

Dolg takes in everything with the same calm acceptance that he showed when he was introduced to 1995 (after the first shock had passed), and seems more interested in the people who greet them than in their surroundings. Marco, who has already experienced something similar when he left the earth for thirty-five years, seems equally calm as he joins his son.

But Móri cannot help but look around, noticing all the differences from the world he was just getting used to. It gives him a certain relief to see that most of the other (living) travellers have the same reaction, looking around with wide eyes as they walk through spotless white corridors and into a large room that is at once a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar. Beside him he can hear as Indra breathes in sharply, and without thinking he takes her hand.  
“Thanks,” she whispers, squeezing it hard for a moment. She doesn’t let go until they are outside and boarding a flying car, and by then his mind is filled with a litany of names.  
_Tiril. Taran. Wilding. Theresa. Erling…_  
He holds on to hope, not quite daring to believe that he will find his family here. Instead of Indra’s hand he finds his son’s, clutching it with the same desperation she showed earlier. Dolg turns his head and looks at him, his eyes reflecting the emotions that they both feel.

And then, finally, after weeks (centuries) of waiting, they are reunited. And throughout the confusion of technology and culture there is the familiar presence of Tiril and his family to guide him, and new friends who share in his bewilderment with smiles and laughter. And there is magic, which never changes, and his constant followers and teachers who have changed into all they were meant to be.

As time passes there is peace, not only for himself but for the two lonely souls who first met in the rocky landscape of Iceland. Of all the changes in his world this one is somehow not strange at all but just perfectly _right_ ; that his son who was never meant for earthly love finds another just like himself. That in the realm of the Light love can be solely in the mind, without any condemnation.  
_Yes,_ Móri thinks, as he settles into his life once again, _I think I’m going to like the future._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it! This was mostly inspired by the second book and your comment about “Móri who was born in 17th century Iceland and then woke up in the late 20th century”. I hope he felt honest to you, I had a lot of fun imagining his reactions, anyway. :) I’m not 100% happy with the ending, but I had to end it somewhere and this seemed fitting. And I really wanted to give you at least a little of what you asked for first, so I hope I managed that too.


End file.
